


you got me in your pocket

by calcelmo



Category: The Usual Suspects (1995)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Retrospective, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25369516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcelmo/pseuds/calcelmo
Summary: He likes human connection. He’s kind of addicted to it, in the way you get addicted to chewing gum and tossing it into the trash.
Relationships: Dean Keaton/Roger "Verbal" Kint | Keyser Söze
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	you got me in your pocket

**Author's Note:**

> This has been 3 years in the making, but I rewatched the movie tonight and had to write something. These two had a... thing. 
> 
> Kevin Spacey go to hell.

He takes his sweet time answering, only because it’s a good fucking question. 

It wasn’t a slight, it wasn’t a criticism. Curiosity bled through the casual tone. 

Not  _ why’d you let him do you,  _ but  _ why’d you let him do  _ that _ to you. _

And it  _ did _ feel strange. His adult life isn’t characterized by his homosexual encounters in the way his childhood had been. Christ, that’s a sad little road to go down. He puts it out of his mind as quickly as it comes. He wears helplessness like a fucking BDSM collar, but that doesn’t mean he wants it for real. 

Keaton was the first to ask permission, albeit after the fact. He was drunk, or something. Keyser indulged in some cannabis, the heaviest thing he lets himself work with when he’s playing the part. He was relaxed, less uptight than usual. He thinks Keaton was definitely the kind of cop to shoot first and ask questions later, going by the way his arm had settled around Keyser’s shoulders, intentions unmistakable. 

Playing Verbal was too fun. And Keaton was half of it. He was too good, that was his problem. He was soft on Edie, he was soft on Verbal fucking Kint. The man murdered indiscriminately when it suited him, but he was a real bleeding heart. His reliability was always conditional, and while lamentable, that was why he was never gonna make it.

He thinks about how damn gentle Keaton was sometimes. He’d have you against the wall, twist your arm, bust your balls, and then five minutes later he was dabbing wet tissue over Keyser’s split lip, wincing at the damage. 

“Sorry,” he’d say.

“It’s okay,” Keyser said, in Verbal’s soft, skittish accent, so many times that he believed it. 

Keaton was straight in the way that most guys are straight, until they need a hole to stick their cock in. Keyser had gone to jail. Keyser had been passed around as a boy. It was painful and rough, it was something you grit and bore. But Keaton was an enigma in that he treated Keyser like a woman. He was slow. He said shit like, “Are you alright? How is it? Am I hurting you?” in the guilt-hushed tones of the heterosexual man who believes that anal sex can’t be anything other than a punishment, and anyone who agrees to it is crazy or troubled or masochistic or all fucking three.

Keyser let him. It was fine, so long as he never got attached. In a way, he became fond of Keaton. The way Keaton touched him so carefully and reverently, as if his body recognized that this was someone to be revered, even if his brain hadn’t caught up. The way Keaton bit his lip in guilt after he’d lost his temper and lashed out, watching Keyser catch his breath. There’s something so deeply satisfying about being held by someone who’s hurt you. 

It becomes a little harder to explain that they weren’t just messing around. And he certainly wasn’t balls deep in  _ Keaton’s _ ass. The living legend of Keyser Soze, shrouded in hyperbolic mystery, was allowing an ex-cop to sodomise him, and there was really no reasonable explanation for that. To put it in those terms, it’s as funny as it is also shameful. 

It’s why he’s gotta lay low for a decade or two. When you’re doing things simply because they feel good, simply for the pleasure of it, you’re on borrowed time. You’re being stupid and arrogant. You’re not thinking clearly.

Keaton tried to protect him.  _ Keaton _ tried to protect  _ him.  _

Before the job, it always felt like they had a little too much time on their hands. Minutes passed like hours and there was some kind of face-off every two fucking seconds, because that’s just how it went. Things got tense and while other guys were turning to drugs, girls, and alcohol, Keaton was turning to Keyser. 

When they were done, Keaton would flush the condom and get started on  _ coffee, _ as if this was something you wanted to dwell on, or savor. Sit with his hand possessive on Keyser’s knee under the table, blank-faced when Hockney asked why Verbal’s limp was so bad today. 

The way Keaton went on, the way his tongue would poke out from between his teeth in concentration as he pulled Keyser in by the waist and insisted on jerking him off- he’d joke that the diamond ring hidden in the bedside table might have fit better on  _ his _ finger than Edie’s.

He wants to show it was all part of the plan. “Well, you see, the reason I positioned Keaton’s cock to be halfway up my ass was very simple, but genius.”

It might have been simple. It was as far from genius as you can get.

He likes human connection. He’s kind of addicted to it, in the way you get addicted to chewing gum and tossing it into the trash. Maybe it’s a fatal flaw. 

Not that it really matters right now. Keaton is swimming with the fishes. It’s not like Keyser’s feelings made his finger waver on the trigger. But his confidant has the right to be concerned. There  _ is _ this huge difference between  _ fucking  _ and getting  _ fucked. _

One thing is for certain; it will never happen again, although it kind of goes without saying. You don’t get this far up the food chain by bending over for your underlings. Keaton was a blip on the radar, and Keyser might spin a story, but he’s no romantic. So when he says Keaton was special, he only means unique. 

He still remembers the way the blood from the bullet wound in his forehead trickled down into Keaton’s unseeing eye. At the time, he found it difficult to look away. He finds it even harder to forget.

“You know what’s even less threatening than a stupid cripple?” Keyser eventually replies, as he stubs out his cigarette on the ground.

_ He was my friend. _

“A stupid,  _ queer _ cripple.” 

And that one flies just as well as every other lie he’s told. 


End file.
